But for the first time, the Russian military caused widespread disruptions on Starlink, creating serious problems for front-line Ukrainian troops, according to the New York Times.
Members of Ukraine’s 92nd Assault Brigade, who spoke to the Times, said Starlink became extremely slow earlier this month as Russian troops advanced across the northern border.
“A day before the attacks, he just stopped,” a soldier who goes by the name Ajax told the media outlet. “It got super, super slow.”
“We are losing the fight against electronic warfare,” Ajax said.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital minister, said in a recent interview that Russia was testing sophisticated new tools to “disrupt the quality of Starlink connections because it’s very important to us,” the Times said.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation. Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images
He added that Ukraine was working with SpaceX to resolve the outages.
Brian Weeden, program director of the nonprofit Secure World Foundation, previously told BI that Russia was having difficulty disrupting Ukraine’s Starlink service.
This may be because its satellites operate at a much lower altitude than geostationary satellites, meaning their signals are stronger and more focused.
Because Starlink satellites are closer to Earth, latency – the delay between a user’s action and a network response – is shorter. This speeds up streaming, online gaming, video conferencing and other activities.
According to the Times, Russia could have interfered with the signal better by using more powerful and precise jammers.
A drone pilot who uses the call sign Kartel told the Times that soldiers had to turn to text messaging apps because Starlink was so slow.
“During the first hours, the front line was very dynamic. The enemy was moving. And so were we. We had to communicate quickly,” he explained, adding that “everything took longer.”
Although the Russian Defense Ministry has not yet commented, an official who leads the country’s electronic warfare efforts told state media in April that the military had developed capabilities to counter Starlink, the Russian Defense Ministry said. media.
The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Russia illegally obtained Starlink devices on the black market to coordinate attacks in Ukraine.
The outlet said the Russians purchased the technology from foreign countries, including the United States, before smuggling it to Russian troops in Ukraine.
SpaceX, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and the Kremlin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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